Save the South Fork Salmon v. U.S. Forest Service

The federal district court for the District of Idaho denied environmental organizations’ motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent a mining company from commencing construction activities in a gold, silver, and antimony mining project on National Forest Systems lands in the Boise and Payette National Forests. Although the court found that the organizations showed a likelihood of success on the merits or serious questions regarding discrete defects in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) Endangered Species Act analyses, the court concluded that the plaintiffs failed to make the required showing of imminent, irreparable harm. Regarding the organizations’ arguments that the FWS’s biological opinion failed to consider climate change effects to bull trout and wolverines, the court found that the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on the merits of these challenges.

Environmental organizations challenged federal reviews and approvals for the Stibnite Gold Project on federal public lands in central Idaho. The complaint, filed in the federal district court for the District of Idaho, described the project as involving construction and operation of a “massive” gold mine for at least 20 to 25 years. The organizations made claims under the Forest Service Organic Administration Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Materials Act of 1947, the Surface Resources Act of 1955, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The organizations’ Endangered Species Act claims were based in part on allegations that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to adequately consider the project’s effects together with the effects of climate change on protected species. The complaint alleged that the agencies failed to adequately consider or analyze (1) potential harms from wolverine habitat fragmentation caused by climate change during the project’s lifespan; (2) adverse effects on bull trout from the project’s temperature effects together with climate change impacts; (3) the combined effects of the project and climate change on whitebark pine in and around the project area; and (4) the adverse effects of the project in combination with climate change on Chinook salmon and steelhead.